it's a simple question, as president clinton said, of arithmetic. arithmetic. you can't get from here to there unless you raise the rates. >> so guys, that's where we are as of this morning, and now what everyone's waiting for is which side will make a concrete proposal here that actually includes some concessions? back to you. >> joining us from washington, d.c., jake sherman, congressional reporter for politico. who is going to make some honest concessions first? >> what eamon said is absolutely right. this comes down to one thing, whether republicans are willing to raise marginal income tax rates on americans. they're saying they're willing to raise revenue, but president obama has one criteria in this debate and that's raising income rates on all americans. right now, the sides are in their two corners on this and nobody is moving. so we're really only a couple weeks out and there's this huge gap, and eamon was right in another aspect. there is this brush fire of conservative lawmakers who don't want to raise revenue at all. so this is a huge problem for sp